The Power of Surrender

One of the most important things about this spiritual approach to healing, to growth, to transformation, is to be able to surrender to what seems most horrible, most terrifying, and most dreaded! Well that's the extreme end of it. You must also be able to recognize and surrender to the little things as well. Let me explain.

Surrender walks hand in hand with trust; trust in life, trust in god, the universe, the powers that be, whatever. When I was first admitted to the hospital I swore to myself to accept and trust in what the doctors and experts say and do. Heh now look at me, telling doctors to shove their anti-fungals up their ass...oh well, what is important is that I had the attitude of allowance and surrender upon entering this mess. This may seem like common sense but I have seen some patients who put up a huge fuss, massive resistance, to medications, to water (funny story), to the scarier things like bone marrow aspirations and lumbar punctures.

The worst lumbar puncture I had I was in a state where I was like "is this really necessary - can't we just leave it at 3 LPs and not do a 4th?" and holy shit did it go wrong. He stabbed me 3-4 times and missed until the last one. The numbing agent wore off around the 2nd poke, I had spine pain for a few months afterwards.

You see, when you meet anything with resistance, it puts a signal out that you are not fully open and trusting in life. And then life slaps you on the wrist, repeatedly, and in relation to how much you are resisting. As you know, my most recent LP went incredibly well, almost unnoticable, because even though in the back of my mind I knew it to be unnecessary (they do it just to cover all their bases and make sure nothing is hiding out in the spinal column by injecting a little chemo in thar), I allowed it, I surrendered to their judgement.

Now of course dont be a fucking limp noodle / doormat to everyone's will. When you are aware enough you will see when to surrender and when to make a stand. You will feel it. You will know. That's another great thing about growing on a soul level, you just begin to know things. People go to Eckhart Tolle's talks, the Dalai Lama's talks just to hear their words, not even to acknowledge them as words carrying meaning, just to hear them. This is because they come from a place of knowing, a place of such truth, and people will resonate with just that alone.

Actually let me leave you with a story of surrender found in Tolle's book The Power of Now (or maybe it was A New Earth, fuck I read them too long ago):

There was a Zen Master who was very pure and very enlightened. Near the place where he lived there happened to be a local food stand. The owner of the local food stand had a beautiful unmarried daughter. One day she became pregnant and soon gave birth to a little boy. Her parents became enraged. They wanted to know who the father was, but she would not give them his name. After repeated scolding and harassment, she gave up and told them it was the Zen Master living near them. The parents believed her. When the child was born they ran to the Zen Master, scolding him with foul tongue, and then left the baby boy with him. The Zen Master said, “Is that so” and this was his only comment.

He accepted the child. He started nourishing and taking care of the boy. By this time his reputation had come to an end, and he was the object of mockery. Days ran into weeks, weeks into months and months into years. The young girl was tortured by her conscience. One day she finally disclosed to her parents the name of the child’s real father, a man who worked in a fish market nearby. The parents again became enraged. At the same time, sorrow and humiliation tortured the household. They came running to the spiritual Master, begged his pardon, narrated the whole story and then took the child back. The Zen Master’s only comment was: “Is that so” and gave back the child willingly.

This rings true with Rumi's teaching of accepting disgrace and giving up your good name. Always loved that story. SO! work on your ability to surrender, actually I think I will add more to this post but right now I need a huge fucking burger. Bye for now!

addition: Some more examples of resistance. Ignoring how you feel when money does that thing when it runs out. If you ignore it, the fear of losing your house, survival fears, um all the stress from banks and bills breaking down your door....you will remain in that state of poverty for a long fucking time until the lesson is learnt. In this situation you gotta again feel these things in all their power, realize them to be illusionary, and tell them to bugger off by clearing them and replacing them with feelings of abundance, wealth, prosperity, and trust that you are always safe. You wont be thrown into the street to die. You wont starve to death. These are mind created fear-based jargon meant to stop you in your tracks.

Another example, seeing an opportunity to do something daring and then not acting on it. You are afraid to expose yourself, afraid to make a mistake. My friend kindly informed me that I dont properly punctuate a lot of my writing. For him its a big deal for me i dongiveashit. Although perhaps if I am to be published...ah fuck it.